


The Night We Met

by HarryPotterTwin



Series: OneShots [1]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Prom, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 03:56:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarryPotterTwin/pseuds/HarryPotterTwin





	The Night We Met

**_ The Night We Met  
A One-shot by HarryPotterTwin _ **

**_A/N_** \- Heavily Inspired by [this image](https://nicefieldsfm.tumblr.com/post/170903919448/please-come-back-i-made-this-a-month-ago-after) by Nicefieldsfm on Tumblr  
 _ **A/N** _ \- Also heavily recommended you listen to [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtlgYxa6BMU) while reading

* * *

  _‘I am not the only traveller_  
Who has not repaid his debt  
I've been searching for a trail to follow again  
Take me back to the night we met’

* * *

 

All was dark in the Blackwell Gym. Crimson banners and drapes hung from the walls, with all different sizes of balloons to match floating by each entrance; in the form of red and white arches, and balloon clusters. In the centre of the  gym was the dance floor; twenty square feet of laminate flooring that had been set out only the day beforehand by a group of jocks. Surrounding it were tables, with each one seating between six and ten people, and having a smaller version of the balloon clusters floating in the centre of each.

Of course, what with the softest song in the world playing from the DJ booth, the majority of the student body were swaying with their various dates on the dance floor, holding each other close, with some even going so far as to share gentle kisses while the teachers weren’t looking.

There was, however, an exception; the girl standing off to the side, simply leaning against the wall of the gym with a glass of punch nursing in her hands.

* * *

  _‘And then I can tell myself_  
What the hell I'm supposed to do  
And then I can tell myself  
Not to ride along with you’

* * *

 

Brown bangs pushed back to behind her ears, with her short hair pulled up into a loose up-do, Max Caulfield had never looked or felt more uncomfortable. She’d been employed by the school to photograph the prom, but thus far was yet to take a single picture of anything worth remembering. Well, to her at least.

Since the previous October, nothing had felt it was worth remembering. Football games, Pep rallies, various day-to-day activities that had once inspired her artistic muse… Not even her own Senior Prom was enough to bring her out of the depressive, lonely slump she’d found herself in since that day; the fateful day that had turned her entire life upside down and inside-out.

The day she allowed her best friend, and the woman she was very much so falling for, to take a gut-shot in order to save the self-same town that had taken everything from her; the people who’d made her life hell for just under two decades

* * *

  _‘I had all and then most of you_  
Some and now none of you  
Take me back to the night we met  
I don't know what I'm supposed to do  
Haunted by the ghost of you  
Oh, take me back to the night we met’

* * *

 

Max remembered the funeral. She remembered Joyce finding her during the wake, curled up on Chloe’s bed, cradling her jacket as if it would disappear if she didn’t, silently sobbing into the material.

She hadn’t meant to leave the people downstairs, nor had she meant to execute what would no doubt be seen to others as an invasion of the Price—no, the **_Madsen_** house, especially for a girl who (supposedly) hadn’t been in touch with the deceased for **_five years_**. But, alas, the pull had been too much for her to handle. Max had slipped away unnoticed, made her way up the stairway she was all-too-familiar with, and into Chloe’s room without so much as a second thought.

Honestly, the room itself hadn’t been the thing to break her. It wasn’t even the emptiness that she felt as soon as the door closed and silence engulfed her. No, it wasn’t anything huge; in fact, in hindsight, it had been kind of silly on her part to get so worked up over something so small.

The thing that had broken Max Caulfield had been Chloe’s half-smoked joint and cigarette, sitting in her ashtray on the floor beside her bed; never to be finished. And that had been it; slowly at first. Max had to lean against Chloe’s desk chair when it first hit, but soon found herself drawing Chloe’s smoke-filled jacket up to her chest, and collapsing onto the bed, tears flowing freely, and barely able to draw breath with the sheer pain screaming through her petite form.

Joyce had found her little over ten minutes later, and instead of flipping out about Max’s snooping around their house she simply pulled the brunette in for a hug, muttering softly to her while her own tears slipped down her cheeks. And she held her until the tears ran dry, even though it took almost half an hour to do so.

Max had told Joyce, as soon as she was able to string together more than two syllables without choking up again, how horrible she felt, and how guilty she felt that she was only able to have a single week with Chloe  (she might have stretched the truth a little) before it had happened.

But the older woman had heard none of it. She’d insisted that whatever time they did have together, regardless of how long, had been special to Chloe, especially given the feelings that had no doubt resurfaced within her daughter from years prior.

Then, Max had asked her how she had coped when William had died five years prior, and the blonde had stiffened up. Instantly, Max had made to apologize for what she assumed was a major step over the line (‘Dammit, Caulfield, the woman’s just lost her daughter and you remind her about her dead ex-husband?!’), but was stopped in her tracks when Joyce spoke, her voice soft and sad, yet more sure than Max had heard it in years.

“… It’s easy to feel lonely in a crowded room, when the one person you miss isn’t there… But how you handle yourself while you miss that person is what really matters…” She’d said, voice shaking slightly with each and every word. “… You have to remember that people love us, and that people need us… In the same way we miss Chloe, and the way that I miss William…”

She’d gone on to say how the pain never left, and that some days it felt like there wasn’t a point to go on. But she then told her that brighter days were yet to come. And with those simple, simple words; it was as if Max’s vision of the world (having previously been reduced to dull sepia) cleared, even if it was only minutely.

* * *

  _‘When the night was full of terrors_  
And your eyes were filled with tears  
When you had not touched me yet  
Oh, take me back to the night we met’

* * *

 

“—rowning of our Prom King and Queen”

Dissociation, it seemed, was a common occurrence by that point. And Max once again zoned in on the goings-on around her at the sound of Principal Wells’ voice ringing through the speaker system; the smallest of metallic squeaks coming in the form of feedback.

‘Oh, great… Just another pointless thing for people to snobby about…’ She thought, stepping forward off of the wall with the smallest of sighs, her eyes closing momentarily. Max knew Victoria was going to win—she just knew. Because when everything had gone down with Jefferson being caught, there’d been a folder baring Victoria’s name in preparation. Of course, she’d made no time in lapping up what attention it brought her, but at the same time it did seem to have humbled her. So… You win some, you lose some.

A hum passed through the crowd, before Wells raised his hand once again, in order to hush them. His expression was one of somber acknowledgement, as if he could tell that his next words could go down a variety of different directions-- not one of them particularly nice, so to speak.

“Now, I know that you’re all itching to know the Prom King and Queen of 2014… But there is, sadly, a rather large elephant in the room that I personally feel the need to address, regarding the results of your voting.” He continued, still over the mutters of the students that had gathered on the dancefloor. Brown eyes closed for a brief second, before Ray Wells’ voice once again piped up, seriousness abound within each and every syllable to fall from him. “As all of you know, Blackwell was struck with a string of tragedies last year--” Max’s heart dropped -- knowing exactly where this train of thought was going, and not liking it one bit. “-- regarding the loss of two of Blackwell’s brightest stars; both of which left a metaphorical and physical mark on these hallowed halls.”

A hush had fallen by then, the crowd of teens seemingly understanding the importance of what their principal was saying. Well, all except the ever-silent photographer, who simply watched with a cocked eyebrow of scepticism. She’d been told by Chloe in no uncertain terms how she’d come to be expelled from school, and sure she understood Wells’ slight amount of… resentment or insecurity regarding her. Chloe had, of course, made the poor guy’s life Hell when it came to attendance, disciplinaries, and the like. But her dismissal had been unfair, even given the blatant disregard towards abiding by the ‘stay on campus’ rule.

“... These students were well loved by many. They were a constant presence within our school, even with passing trends and seasons. And their passing leaves a hole that cannot, and will not be filled--”

‘Bull-shit… God, could this guy get any more fake?’ Max thought bitterly, with the smallest of scoffs under her breath; not loud enough to be heard, but enough for her to know she’d done it.

“-- So, it is with both pride and a heavy heart that I announce your Prom Queens for the evening, winning with an overwhelming majority of your votes… Miss Rachel Dawn Amber, and Miss Chloe Elizabeth Price.”

* * *

  _‘I had all and then most of you_  
Some and now none of you  
Take me back to the night we met  
I don't know what I'm supposed to do  
Haunted by the ghost of you  
Take me back to the night we met’

* * *

 

Max froze, and tears formed in her eyes.

There, on screen, was quite possibly the happiest picture she’d seen of Chloe and Rachel. It was taken on what must have been Chloe’s eighteenth birthday; both girls ‘eyes glinting happily as they lay in bed. Chloe’s arm was obviously holding up what must have been a  phone, with her tattooed arm being in the peripheral of the image. Rachel was leaning into Chloe, kissing her cheek, wearing a bright grin and an aura of contentment.

But the thing that really hit her? Two masks that were later taken to the drama department and set up in a glass case as a memorial being brought out on stage and set on a podium; overlooking the proceedings. Hell, Max was pretty sure she even saw Victoria joining in the slow, sad applause that built among the student body; tears in her eyes which the blonde attempted (and failed) to hide.

The brunette’s heart broke for the second time that night, and continued to break every time she passed by the display cabinet in which those masks were presented within the school. She found herself visiting it more often than was probably healthy, but she didn’t care. It was her fault that this was how Chloe was being remembered. It was her fault that her best friend was rotting in a grave.

What she wouldn’t have given, she found herself thinking, to go back to the day they’d met back in school. But she’d swore to herself that her powers were retired; idle and of no more use to her.

And this time, there were no take-backs.


End file.
